Alien Tribe 2 for iPad Does Justice to the 4x RTS Genre

Alien Tribe 2 is what real-time strategy fans call a 4x game, meaning the goal is to eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Charming, right? You don't have to be all tyrannical about it, though. In Alien Tribe 2 for iPadyou have to keep your civilization alive by colonizing new planets, building up defenses, and finding the resources you need to stay ahead of the bad guys.

Alien Tribe 2 is what real-time strategy fans call a 4x game, meaning the goal is to eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Charming, right? You don't have to be all tyrannical about it, though. In Alien Tribe 2 for iPad you have to keep your civilization alive by colonizing new planets, building up defenses, and finding the resources you need to stay ahead of the bad guys.

This game is top down and everything happens at 1x speed. Some games in this genre employ time dilation to keep things moving along, but this one doesn't. It's preferential that games have such a feature, but to be fair, most of the actions in Alien Tribe 2 don't take overly long to complete. For example, after you've gathered the necessary resources, construction projects complete fairly quickly.

Alien Tribe 2 is a top down game, which helps it from getting too complicated when battles start. To prepare for attacks, you'll need to build warships, weapons platforms, and a robust network of resources. It's great that the game makes use of multiple ship types to get things done. For example, you've got freighters to mine and transport resources, colony ships to move people to new planets, and construction ships to set up new space platforms. The planets even move slowly in their orbits as you're playing, which is a neat dynamic to the game.

The graphics are good, but not anything amazing. The game is only a bit more than 80MB, so don't go in expecting giant, spectacular explosions and high-resolution textures. The graphics are clean and the backgrounds are actually pretty nice. The main draw is probably the gameplay, though.

If you're really into the RTS genre, this is a solid title. The assortment of units is good, and resource management is realistic (you have to actually transport cargo to build things). You're looking at $7.99 to get Alien Tribe 2, and there are some IAPs. However, they basically amount to shortcuts in the game, and you can get the same premium currency easily without paying anything. For fans of 4x RTS, Alien Tribe 2 is worth checking out in spite of the price tag.

About the Author

Ryan Whitwam is a freelance tech/science writer and fan of all things electronic. This long-time skeptic and former research scientist is a lover of the em dash and a defender of the Oxford comma. He also writes for Geek.com and ExtremeTech.
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